The Internet and the World Wide Web (hereinafter “the web”) have revolutionized the ways in which information is disseminated and shared. At any given time, the Internet enables millions of users worldwide to simultaneously access a wide variety of information and engage in activities as diverse as shopping, playing games, financial trading, among others.
At present, users can access Internet information through various “Internet appliances”, which are electronic devices configured with an Internet access system. Internet appliances include, but are not limited to, microprocessor based devices such as personal and portable computers, and handheld appliances such as personal digital assistants and electronic organizers.
Typically, the information is accessed through a connection to a “web page”, a multimedia composition that may contain text, audio, graphics, imagery, video, and nearly any other type of content that may be experienced through use of a computer or other electronic device. A web page may also be interactive, and contain user selectable links that cause other web pages to be displayed, forms that may be used by the user to submit information requested in the web page, interactive executable code, or other elements through which the user may interact with web pages. A group of one or more interconnected and closely related web pages is referred to as a “web site”.
A web site has a particular address associated with it called a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”). To view a particular web site, users input its corresponding URL on a “web browser window” displayed by “web browser software”, such as Internet Explorer, available from Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond, Wash. The web browser software runs on the user's Internet appliance and is responsible for fetching the information displayed on the web site from a “web server” using a transfer protocol such as the HyperText Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”).
While most of the traffic on the Internet is initiated from personal computers, the growing demand by mobile business users to have access to Internet information from anywhere in the world has led to the development of various Internet access technologies for handheld Internet appliances such as wireless telephones and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”). In particular, it has become increasingly popular to access information available in the Internet via PDAs, such as the Palm handheld devices manufactured by Palm, Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., the Handspring Visor manufactured by Handspring, Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., and the HP Jornada manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif.
A PDA provides computing and information storage and retrieval capabilities for personal or business use, often for keeping schedule calendars and address book information handy. Information is accessed by means of an electronically sensitive pad on which handwriting can be received. Currently available PDAs contain a number of useful local applications including an address book, a calendar, a memo pad, a calculator, and a to-do list, among others. Users are provided with a special pen called a stylus to write on the pad and “tap” on icons on the PDA screen corresponding to the PDA applications. In addition, PDA expansion slots may be used to enhance the PDA capabilities with a digital camera, a GPS receiver, a scanner, and other devices. Recently developed PDAs such as the PDA Phone manufactured by Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., of Seoul, South Korea, and the Kyocera QCP 6035 Smartphone manufactured by Kyocera Wireless Corp., of San Diego, Calif., combine the functionalities of a PDA and a wireless phone into a single handheld appliance.
The Internet is accessed on a PDA by means of a wireless modem and Internet access software. The wireless modem may either be internally integrated into the PDA such as in the case of the Palm VIIx, manufactured by Palm, Inc., or connected externally as an expansion module. External wireless modems include the Thinmodem manufactured by Card Access, Inc., of American Fork, Utah, and the various modems manufactured by Novatel Wireless, Inc., of San Diego, Calif. The Internet access software may consist of a microbrowser, which is a simpler version of a web browser with reduced graphic capabilities, and a variety of APIs (application program interfaces) and associated applications for formatting and displaying web pages on the PDA screen.
There are many advantages in being able to access the Internet with a PDA. The PDA is extremely mobile and can be utilized by business persons and consumers who are traveling or otherwise do not have access to a desktop computer. The PDA enables business persons and consumers to manage, share, and secure the information needed on a daily basis. A PDA user can access the Internet to read e-mails, search for a restaurant, obtain a map and driving directions, purchase airline tickets or shop, all without the need for a traditional, desktop computer.
However, accessing the Internet using a PDA has several drawbacks. First, the wireless Internet connection may be unreliable, and the user may have to wait a significant amount of time to receive the requested information. Second, it can be a very time consuming process, requiring users to work through many options in order to access the desired information. Lastly, it can be extremely cumbersome for the user to save the desired information into the PDA.
For instance, a user who is accessing the Internet on a PDA to read e-mail may want to save an e-mail address into the PDA's address book. To save the e-mail address into the address book, the user is required to perform a number of steps, including: (1) connecting to the Internet; (2) starting the e-mail application to read the e-mail; (3) copying the e-mail address; (4) quitting the e-mail application; (5) starting the address book application; and (6) pasting the e-mail address into the address book.
In order to make travel arrangements on-line and save the travel information on the PDA's calendar, the user must first connect to a web site for making travel reservations before starting the calendar application, and then manually enter the departure date, time, location and destination, as well as a return date and time into the calendar. Similarly, a user who is browsing a financial web site to trade stocks and wants to use the PDA's calculator application to compute his financial gains for a particular stock must first connect to the web site to get the stock pricing information before starting the calculator application and manually entering the stock pricing information in the calculator application.
Alternatively, the user may launch a web site directly from a local application as described in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/834,376, filed on Apr. 13, 2001. The user must still, however, manually select the information from the web site and paste it into the local application. There are currently no mechanisms in place for the user to automatically load Internet content into a handheld Internet appliance and to automatically post Internet content displayed on a web site into another web site. In short, it can be inordinately difficult and time consuming for the PDA user to transfer information from the Internet into local applications in a handheld Internet appliance.
To address this difficulty, Coola, Inc., of Woburn, Mass., has developed a set of APIs and a server technology that enables users to automatically transfer information from web sites into handheld Internet appliances. The APIs are used to insert user interface buttons on the web sites. When the buttons are pressed by the user, the APIs convert information from the web site into a special format called “coolet”. The coolet is sent to a centrally located server before transferring the information into the user's PDA. The information is transferred into the PDA only after the user synchronizes the PDA with a personal computer.
While this solution enables users to easily transfer information from web sites into their PDAs, it has the drawback of requiring the user to first synchronize the PDA with a personal computer before the information is transferred into the PDA. Considering that PDAs are a mobile device, users often need to transfer information from web sites into their PDAs while on the road and without access to a personal computer. For example, users on business trips who need to handle a business crisis on the road may need to download information from a web site and transfer the information into a memo pad on the PDA before boarding on an airplane. In this case, the user does not have access to the personal computer and cannot easily transfer the information into the PDA.
In view of the foregoing drawbacks, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for automatically loading information available in the Internet into a local database associated with a handheld Internet appliance application.
It further would be desirable to provide systems and methods for automatically transferring information from a web site into a handheld Internet appliance without requiring a user to synchronize the handheld Internet appliance with a personal computer.
It also would be desirable to provide systems and methods for formatting and inserting user interfaces on a web site displayed on a handheld Internet appliance to enable a user to automatically transfer information from the web site into the handheld Internet appliance.